The present embodiments relate to shear wave ultrasound imaging. Shear waves traveling through tissue may be detected. The shear velocity or other characteristics of the shear wave may indicate diagnostically useful information about the tissue, such as the stiffness of the tissue. Cysts, dead tissue, or other abnormally stiff or soft tissue may be detected using shear wave ultrasound imaging.
Detecting shear waves propagating in tissue may suffer from high levels of noise due to motion of the tissue relative to the transducer probe. Since ultrasound is used, the acoustic reflections or reverberation may also contribute to noise in detecting shear waves. Detection of the shear wave using peak detection in displacement, correlation lag, or other techniques may be less reliable due to the noise.